Privilege escalation in cybersecurity refers to the act of an unauthorized user or process gaining higher-level privileges or permissions than they initially had within a computer system or network. This typically involves elevating one’s access rights to perform actions or access resources that are restricted to privileged or administrative users.
There are two primary types of privilege escalation:
- Horizontal Privilege Escalation: In this scenario, an attacker with limited access attempts to gain unauthorized access to another user’s account or session with the same level of privilege. This can happen, for example, when an attacker hijacks an active user’s session to impersonate them.
- Vertical Privilege Escalation: This form of privilege escalation involves an attacker with limited or standard user privileges attempting to gain higher-level privileges, such as administrative or root access. Successful vertical privilege escalation would allow the attacker to gain control over the entire system or network.
Privilege escalation is a significant security concern because it can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data, the execution of malicious code with elevated permissions, and the potential compromise of an entire system or network. Cybersecurity measures, such as access controls, user privilege management, and vulnerability patching, are implemented to prevent and mitigate privilege escalation attacks.